Prendre soin d'un enfant, un travail comme un autre?

Abstract

This article has its roots in the basic contradictions, which go back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, between the self‐interest and the care of others, exemplified by the delegation of responsibility for the care of children and other vulnerable persons. This splitting of human life‐supporting activities has sealed women's dependence on men by setting off the lucrative area from the private, non‐lucrative sphere of activities. These contradictions become paradoxical as soon as we consider the delegation of responsibility for the care of a child to someone not related to the child. This article addresses the question of how the child's developmental needs can be met without damage to his/her sensitivity, and his/her perception of others or of the cooperation involved. As soon as it is born, the child, a thoroughly interactive being, discerns the relationships it entertains with those who are in charge of him/her. The persons – mostly women – who take care of the child are not interchangeable, since they bring their own subjectivity into their dealings with the child and this is reciprocal. The women's skills, frequently thought to be “undefinable”, but which many women, whether related or not to the child, have developed or should develop, are brought into play and are either transmitted or acquired in the course of their care of the child; these skills are not by nature “feminine skills”, but they require a great deal of reactivity and sensitivity and therefore, many child professionals, mothers' aids and children's care‐takers in the home are hurt and insulted by the low esteem in which they are held. These skills and human qualities, which are the result of feelings more than of formalised knowledge, techniques or theories – albeit these are also necessary – make child care and child rearing an art. These skills seem to be in total contradiction with those that are current in the world of labour, where the tempo of work, flexibility of working hours, the evaluation criteria and anxiety are conditioned by economic considerations and rest on purely monetary factors. Finally, a recognition of these sensitive qualities – when it is given – must of necessity be inter‐subjective but also be societal. The latter requires a new, different organisation of the labour world, one which recognises the diversity of human activities, where each can find a sense of social usefulness by contributing to the satisfaction of others' social needs and having one's own needs satisfied by others – by many others. This would presuppose reversing the meaning of the division of labour and of life‐maintaining activities by placing greater emphasis on “interest in others”.